Sure Beats Another Potholder!

A soft-spoken elderly gent canvassing the neighborhood knocked on our door yesterday with a list of registered voters in hand and asked my wife if we were considering voting Christine Chavez for the 45th state assembly seat in the coming elections June 6. When Susan answered that we were as yet undecided at this relatively early stage in the political game, the man made a note on his clipboard, thanked her and before turning to leave offered her a small cardboard box with a picture of Christine as a child being carried on her legendary grandfather Cesar’s shoulder, which she accepted.

Inside the box is a touch of political shwag genius. There are six notecards, each one featuring Christine at some personal/political point in her progressive life: being piggybacked by her granddaddy, carrying a “Si Se Puede” sign as a child, marching with Mayor ‘Tonio and United Farm Workers President Arturo Rodriguez, performing a same-sex marriage, leading a protest with bullhorn in hand, and getting arrested. In the few seconds it took me to flip through them I learned more about this candidate than a truckload of 30-second TV spots.

Does that mean she has my vote sewn up? Not yet. However understandably, she’s playing the Cesar card reeaaaaaaalllly hard, and as much as I respect and admire where and who she comes from I’m going to need to know a lot more about where she wants to go.